Dorece Sam: SLAPP Suits and Dirty Deals

Continued Series on mining of Lithium and other metals needed to create and upgrade "new technology" energy systems.... but at what cost?

(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) - When you look at a gleaming new electric vehicle what do you see? We love our cars, that is not in question, and our new technologies- and lithium mining for batteries for these vehicles is where it all begins.

We began this series on Lithium mining and the mining of other metals needed to create and upgrade energy systems which are considered essential. But there are problems of policy, of the enforcement of laws, and of environmental inequality and landscape destruction.

In my office, on the wall, was a page titled, "questions to ask about any new technology." It seems we can never ask enough.

Exclusive interview with Dorece Sam, Paiute/Shoshone, Fort McDermitt Tribe in Northern Nevada

Dorece Sam: We started the sacred fire on the water line on May 11th, when we erected the Tipi. So, I was on the front line for a week until the officer showed up on May 19th, towards evening, when they gave me that Temporary Restraining Order (TRO).

I believe it was like a week after the Temporary Restraining Order when... I wasn't given the lawsuit, the SLAPP lawsuit, it was actually emailed to me so it was just the heads up from, I believe it was Max that sent it to me, and so I didn't know about it.

So we have this lawsuit on us with myself being the only descendant of Ox Sam that was stated in this SLAPP lawsuit, and there are other descendants, Dean Barlese and there was two other Natives, BC and also Bethany that were named in the lawsuit, and Max, and I think it was Paul Cienfuegos and PTP, Protect Thacker Pass.

To this day they have never served me the lawsuit or emailed me the lawsuit. The only lawsuit I've seen is a lawsuit that Max shared with us.

Robert Lundahl: So yeah, he got one, he got the actual copy. He was served and then on the lawsuit it mentions you, too, so he was calling you and letting you know, is that it? Got it.

Wow, that's just unbelievable that you've been on your land for about 10,000 years and then they come in and they think, we're going to issue this lawsuit and basically the point of these SLAPP suits is to shut people up, right?

Robert Lundahl: Did that surprise you? I mean it's a lot of money, right, that they're claiming in damages? Dorece Sam: I guess it does surprise me but then, it doesn't scare me though, because I don't think it's really going to stand.

Personally, I think that the only reason why they filed this lawsuit [was an attempt to scare us] and the charges in the lawsuit were civil conspiracy, nuisance, trespass, torturous interference, torturous interference with contractual relations with prospective economic advantages and unjust enrichment (laughs).

'SLAPP' was coined to recognize lawsuits filed to silence criticism. Judge J. Nicholas Colabella wrote in Gordon v. Marrone (N.Y . 1992), “Short of a gun to the head, a greater threat to First Amendment expression can scarcely be imagined.”

We were in all of the TROs, where they stated that we were flying drones really close to them, that the workers feared for their lives, which was all false allegations and accusing us of taking diesel from their vehicles, from their equipment, and I'm like, "I don't even have a diesel vehicle."

Robert Lundahl: That's odd. Yeah, well I've seen all the drone footage and when the drone is close to the workers, they're waving and smiling right?

Dorece Sam: Right, correct. So I said it didn't look like they were in fear for their lives. You know, actually I think they were enjoying the attention.

Robert Lundahl: That's pretty harsh, you know, and the reason I asked the question was because it seems like with these large companies, and particularly the mining companies, all around the world, you know, they're using these kinds of tactics to intimidate people, right?

Dorece Sam: They say it's in the work zone, only because they were passing the water line right through the road that goes to Sentinel Rock. So they've already laid down their pipeline so I don't even know if it's still considered to be in their work zone.

A cousin of mine worked with a lot of archaeologists and they told her that we should still be able to have access to Sentinel Rock but I don't want to hurt the lawsuit.

I don't want to hurt how far the attorneys have come in fighting against them and things like that, so I don't want to hurt that, so I've been keeping my distance from Sentinel Rock.

It is hard because we're so used to being up there all the time and offering prayers and things and, you know, just walking around being on the land itself and it's hard.

But you know it's something that I have to deal with until this is over and hopefully that's going to be soon.

Dorece Sam: Oh my gosh, I hope they're going to dismiss it. It's just a scare, just to keep us away from there, and you know it's also causing a division because they've taken pictures off of the internet, off of social media and stuff.

There are people in there where you know they clearly stated their names, but these people they're not into a lawsuit. It's not that I want them in the lawsuit, it's just that it does look like they're trying to cause a division there.

Robert Lundahl: So this started- what, a couple of years ago? I mean the first lawsuit that the tribes filed, there were three or four tribes right?

So there was Burns Paiute, Summit Lake, Reno Sparks, and they objected to the mine early on the basis of lack of consultation and following procedures incorrectly right, do I have that right?

Dorece Sam: Max and Will first came to Thacker Pass, 2020, like around November, December.

Dorece Sam: The winter, 2020, they were camping at Thacker Pass, already. I... we didn't know.

Then my niece notified us, told us to go check on these people that were camping there. We had no idea where this was, because she didn't really give a specific place she just said oh they're up on the hill.

My aunt and I were just driving around, you know, trying to find them but we didn't know they were out at Thacker Pass until later. We called her and she told us where they were out there.

And so, on March 3rd (2021), they were having a meeting in the Orovada community, and they invited us.

Myself, my aunt, my mom, my brothers, my niece, and my two twins we went out to Orovada and that was the first time that we protested.

We were protesting outside the building. I mean I had no idea what we were protesting. I knew that the mine was going to be there, and I knew it was going to be a lithium mine. For myself, I was happy there was a mine coming because I thought, hey, you know this is jobs for the people close to home.

I didn't know what kind of mine it was. That was the thing. And that was the first time that we met Max and Will, so we got talking to them and they started telling us the effects, what it was going to cause and how it was going to affect things, and that was when I got serious about this.

We knew that a Massacre had happened there and things, and so we've been involved ever since then.

And my son and I, I told him, let's just keep going out to Thacker Pass and let's keep droning and watch what they're doing and that's what we did.

You know we have seen from where it was all Sagebrush, just all nature and everything until now. Until you know, they have their brine ponds and everything filled up out there. I mean it's just they're going, they're not stopping for nothing. Robert Lundahl: Maybe they don't feel secure that they've really won those legal battles. I mean one of the problems that really blew my mind, honestly, was Judge Miranda Du, when she made that ruling that they didn't really complete the procedure.

She even went as far as saying the mine's illegal but we're going to go anyway- and it was illegal.

It's illegal because they don't have a permit to dump their waste, their tailings and their mess. They're going to dump it on public land, and they would need a permit for that.

So when the first lawsuit was filed, that was when they were saying that there's no massacre site, they had not admitted that. Then it was later, I don't know when, but it's like a year later or something they came around.

Dorece Sam: They also went to a meeting, their quarterly dialogue meeting, here on the reservation with Maria Anderson, she's one of the workers at Lithium.

So they showed a video of the finds that they had out there, the arrowheads, and you know things like that, and they even showed a hearth, a kitchen that the Paiutes used a long time ago.

A hearth, and they had found two of them! They had taken a picture and they were showing us where the fire had been around it, you know, the different colors, the layers of dirt from the hearth.

So it's pretty interesting that they have all of this evidence and they show it, but still there's no stop to what's going on out there, you know the destruction, the desecration.

Robert Lundahl: Well the hearth, I mean, that's like the family fire, right? I mean, doesn't that indicate that people were living there?

Robert Lundahl: Kitchen stove, right. So that's a big admission. Wasn't there also tool manufacturing? The spear points, the arrowheads, wasn't that obsidian?

Dorece Sam: Yeah they have all of that and they said they have them stored away in Henderson, Nevada, I believe.

Robert Lundahl: Okay so they admitted there's the village or there's people living there; two hearths, two families, two kitchens, that could be a bunch of people right there you know, depending on the size of the family group, right?

There's tool making, so they lived there, they hunted there, they had that all in proximity so that seems like a pretty good situation. They didn't have to go a long long way for the tools, for the spear points.

It sounds like a settled area, and that would explain the massacres because people we're living there, and then the Pit River people came in, that was massacre number one and they got pushed out from the colonizing, the gold rush, and then the Nevada Cavalry came in for number two, and people were living there and Ox Sam was there.

I just want to clear this up because there were two massacres, there's a village, there's people living, they're making tools, it was real settled down. It seemed like a good place. I mean people must have lived there well and easily and made a living.

Dorece Sam: Yeah, it's right by Crowley Creek, so there's like a creek that runs right there so it is in a good place. It feels really good there. I mean, I would have lived there– the fish, the deer, it's plentiful there and the herbs, they get the medicines, it's all there.

Robert Lundahl: We talked to Tracker (Gina) and she set us up with Austin Ringelstein, and he looked at the EIS and he said, well, they really didn't do a comprehensive job.

They didn't walk the land, they didn't have time, they didn't follow through, they weren't particularly good at it. He called it "abysmal." Actually, "abysmal," because they're supposed to do all that in good faith and work with tribal people.

Robert Lundahl: Then later we found out that Oak Flat (in Arizona) had that same situation where they they had been sort of railroaded into a land exchange and were set to turn the land over to a non-United States mining company and let them mine, but they didn't have a permit either down there to dispose of the materials and the tailings. Right.

President Biden put a pause on that, you know. He said maybe we're not going to go forward right now, that kind of thing, not that they couldn't do it later or approve it later, but they stopped it.

Dorece Sam: Well how do we know the next president is going to be any better than the ones that we've had currently and previously? It's just like, you know, the situation here on the reservation.

Our previous Council chairwoman, she didn't communicate with the community. She didn't make phone calls, return phone calls, to our current tribal chairman.

He's for this mining all together, and it really makes me wonder because there's a few times where I've seen him going into the Kings River Community to purchase hay for his livestock and if any of the communities are going to be hit hard and first it would be the King's River area.

Makes me wonder why he is for this mine, you know. He doesn't think. He's not thinking.

Well, they set up our first hearing and then dismissed that to a later date and I believe I might be wrong, they rescheduled twice already, and so I believe we're looking at somewhere in October.

That goes to show that you know they're just using this SLAPP lawsuit to keep us out of there, keep us off of our own lands.

The young people, they're very, you know, destructive. There's a lot of jealousy, a lot of animosity that goes on here. We had a nice Travel Plaza, and when our former chairman, Tilden, the one that fast tracked this mine, he got voted out, and someone went and set fire to the Travel Plaza.

They said that it was a grease fire that caused the fire there. Some say he had something to do with it, I don't want to say it was him but I was told as much.

So you know the Travel Plaza was a good thing to have there because some of the local Natives, you know, they sold their beadwork and "what not" there, and there were a lot of travelers that went through.

And you know, for myself the way that I see this culture center is, where are they going to get the things that are going to be there? They want a museum in there. But, how will they get the things for the displays when the whole, you know, a majority of the community are against the Ox Sam Camp?

We don't want the mine and they do want the mine. A lot of the family are into making buckskin moccasins and gloves and cradle boards, beaded items, and there's a lot of people who don't... don't know how to do things.

Robert Lundahl: And this is for the cultural center, so the building that they want to make a good public relations image is a culture center.

The BLM didn't acknowledge the presence of the people in the village and the massacre sites, and then a lawsuit was filed, and then they did acknowledge it and they even have photographs.

They brought them in and showed you the evidence that they had and they acknowledged it, which is like where you lived and how you cooked and obtained tools and all those kinds of things, so that was like really super clear.

And then you're worshiping at your sacred places where you usually have prayed, you know. “Usually” for 10,000 years... and then they called it their work area because there's a road going there and you're trying to go there too. ...and I want to talk to you about the excavator in a minute, but so then all of a sudden it's their work area and then they sue you guys to shut everybody up.

Robert Lundahl: So there's kind of a real evil process going on where they just don't care what they do, and they want to shut it down and you know attack the people.

Robert Lundahl: So okay, well let's talk about what happened with the excavator. When that young man went out there and talked to the driver, it was then they started talking about all this harassment stuff.

I saw the video and he went out there and he said, “What are you guys doing? Do you feel really good about tearing up Native land?”

You know, this is Native land, right, so I mean that was a very reasonable, intelligent conversation that wasn't threatening.

Dorece Sam: I just woke up that morning and I seen that picture of the young man running towards the excavator and I probably know as much as everybody else does by the videos.

The young man, when he tried to stop the excavator, I guess was when the person driving the excavator was afraid that he was trying to hurt himself or that he was gonna get hurt, and so they called the officers in.

So they kept calling the Sheriff's Department. The sheriff didn't want to get involved but being that their boss kept calling them and making them come out there.

I don't know if it was a planned thing because from what I was told, there was a couple of Sheriff's Vehicles out there so it might have been a planned thing that day that they raided the camp, and I think it was because of the excavator incident.

Robert Lundahl: So when they raided the camp they took sacred objects too, right?

I mean, I heard about eagle feathers and that there were other sacred things taken.

Dorece Sam: Yeah, they took my prayer staff, and you know that staff held a lot of prayers; it had a lot of offerings and carried an eagle feather on it that was gifted to me from a friend of mine that lived in the Kings River Valley.

Retrieving prayer staff from police trash bag.

He had gotten the feather off of one of the Eagles that nest right there in the Thacker Pass area. That is where that eagle feather came from, so that's why I carried it on the staff.

Robert Lundahl: ...and they gave all that back, right? But they put it in garbage bags and it didn't look like they took care of it.

Dorece Sam: I'm the president of the Native American Indian Church of the State of Nevada. And my Auntie, Josephine, she's the Vice President, and being that I couldn't communicate with Lithium or be in the Thacker Pass area, I told my Auntie I said, well what if we write up a letter for you and you can hand deliver it to the Lithium office for us to retrieve our items back.

I told her, I said, I'm not too sure if they would, but if they (don't) you know they're violating a lot of things (laws), and so I started looking in my paperwork with them, because I told them they're violating the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA).

We wrote this letter for my auntie and she delivered it to... she tried to take it to the Sheriff's Office and she just got the runaround, literally, all over Winnemucca.

And then she took it to the courts, and then she was told to take it to the Lithium (Americas) office and she took it to the Lithium office and I think it was there that she was informed that... the security at Thacker Pass had everything.

So she and you know the rest of the crew went up there to retrieve all of these items and I guess her main concern was my staff because of the eagle feather on there.

And it hurt her to see my Eagle Staff, my prayer staff placed upside down in a garbage bag.

And then also for her to see how they had put the sacred fire out. Yeah, she was upset.

Robert Lundahl: So like you said, to repeat, you are leaders in the Native American Church in the State of Nevada and Native American religion is protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution, freedom of religion just like everybody else, and also their specific laws like AIRFA, American Indian Religious Freedom Act.

Why didn't this get into the heads of any of those people at the Sheriff's Office or the court that you visited and so forth. I mean, they should know right?

Dorece Sam: I don't know. Everybody- we say, they probably got paid off.

I'm not too sure, I mean I know, at the beginning when the sheriffs went out there they didn't really want to get involved with it. I know when I was served the TRO one of the guys that handed me the TRO knew who I was, which surprised me, but he told me he didn't want to do it but he said it's his job, and I told him I said, "I understand."

Another time, I was driving down 95 and we were working on a rundown vehicle when Highway Patrol pulled up and right away he knew who I was and he said that he supports what we're doing, trying to do our land. He said it was off the record...

Robert Lundahl: ...and meanwhile, on the record, all your sacred items are in a garbage bag somewhere, right? So what- they say you know as a community member, I live here too, or I have a family in town or those kinds of things, I support you, I know you, I'm going to see you again in the market; you know we're not- we can't never have a relationship or not talk ever again.

I mean he's there, but then at the same time all this is going on and I'm thinking about the accountability.

Does Lithium Nevada have a relationship with the County Sheriff's Department? Do they support them financially?

Dorece Sam: Well I'm sure it's happening because when they raided Camp, they had Lander County Sheriffs there, so I mean if it was just Humboldt County you know, it would have been just Humboldt County, but obviously there's some payoffs happening because it's a different County that's coming in assisting Humboldt County and the only time that ever happens is if there are drugs involved and there was no drugs involved.

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[Note: Transcript Edited by Bonnie King, Salem-News.com for ease in readability.]

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